


Day of the Dumb-asses

by Phlinting



Series: Slow Burn [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, M/M, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-08-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 23:46:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7866148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phlinting/pseuds/Phlinting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nearly a year of bliss-filled, soulmate one-on-one, two-on-one, and holy-wow-that-was-incredible time together later...<br/>Darcy meets a couple of dumb-ass kidnappers who have no idea the trouble they've just gotten themselves into.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day of the Dumb-asses

Steve was greeted at the door by one of his soulmates. Bucky grinned and pulled him into a kiss that left them both panting and painfully hard.

"Missed you," Bucky said, reaching for his hand, and then pulling him further into the apartment. "How was the mission?"

Steve shrugged. Most of the work he did these days was either Avengers stuff or Avengers related. Today's mission was one of the worst—PR. Having to suit up and answer questions from nosy reporters was far more exhausting than fighting off a dozen doombots trying to destroy the city.

If it wasn't for Tony taking point and giving them all media-savvy advice, Steve was pretty sure one of the Avengers would have put a reporter through a wall by now. Some of the questions they asked and the baseless accusations they made were downright insane. 

Steve honestly couldn't believe there was a person on the planet asshole enough to ask the Black Widow her breast size. Instead of beating the snot out of the fool—which Steve was pretty sure was what the guy had been angling for so that he could label the Avengers as thugs rather than heroes—Natasha has simply raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him, made a quip about Tony Stark being a genius when it came to bullet-proof materials  _and_ fashion design, and moved on to the next reporter.

Steve had no doubt that Tony Stark's AI was very busily destroying the nasty reporter's credit rating right now. And Steve had no intention of stopping it. He was all for free speech, but he didn't appreciate it when people used that privilege to hurt and manipulate others into losing their temper simply to sell a few newspapers.

Natasha put her life on the line every time the Avengers were assembled. At the very least, she deserved people's respect.

"That bad, huh?" Bucky asked, smoothing his hand over the frown lines on Steve's forehead.

"Worse," he said with a small quirk of his lips. "Darcy not home yet?"

"She and Jane had a meeting with Reed Richards so they'll probably be a while."

Steve frowned. "We're in charge of dinner?" he asked dubiously. They'd tried to learn but in the end Darcy had banned them both from the kitchen for everything but cleanup. Steve wasn't going to complain since Darcy was a damn good cook and he didn't mind washing dishes.

But on the nights when she might have to work late, it was unfair to expect her to cook when she got in.

"Stop frowning so hard," Bucky said, pulling him closer and pressing a hard kiss to his lips. "I ordered take-out."

"You, Bucky Barnes, are definitely a genius."

"I know," Bucky said smugly, stepping back and starting to undo the buttons on his shirt. "Especially since that means we have  several hours to fill." He let his shirt drop to the ground, the flat planes of his stomach and the hard muscles covering his shoulders and chest on full display. He reached for his belt and had it half undone (and Steve totally enthralled) before he whispered, "Fancy a nap?"

Steve grinned, lifted his soulmate over his shoulder, and hurried down the hallway to the bedroom, the sound of Bucky's sexy laughter filling his ears.

~*~

Darcy was honestly contemplating using a few of the combat skills Bucky and Natasha had been teaching her. 

Reed Richards had spent the better part of the last two hours telling them how brilliant he was without really explaining the scientific breakthrough they'd been summoned here to "admire."

Grinding her teeth together helped Darcy to keep her mouth shut, but only barely. She dealt with scientists and geniuses every day of the week. She was used to their quirkiness and often disjointed way of talking. But she had always detested Reed Richards self-involved attitude. In fact she disliked the blowhard almost as much as she loathed his brother-in-law, Johnny Storm. 

And no, she was never explaining to Steve or Bucky why she'd Tazed "flame boy" only a few minutes after meeting him. The fewer people who knew her reason for  _that_ reaction, the safer Johnny would be.

"Well," Tony Stark said, finally cutting off the man who had essentially held them prisoner for the past two hours, "that's all very"—he rolled his hand in the air as if he was searching for the right word—"fascinating." 

Reed apparently didn't notice the sarcasm in Tony's attitude or his tone of voice because he nodded enthusiastically and then opened his mouth to keep talking. It seemed pretty clear that he had hours more worth of bragging planned.

"Unfortunately,"—thank God, Tony was rocking the rude billionaire attitude today—"some of us have board meetings to attend and R&D think-tank sessions to run and a million other things to fit into our very busy days, so we'll leave it there for now." Tony turned toward the exit, and then spun back as if he'd forgotten something. "Oh, but feel free to follow up with a ridiculously detailed email if you think that's appropriate."

Reed did not look impressed that his monologue was being cut off prematurely, but he brightened at the idea of sending a "detailed" email. Darcy nearly groaned out loud since she'd be the poor mook who'd have to sift through the hundred page report to find the three lines of important information.

But Tony was leaving and Darcy had no qualms about hitching her wagon to that train. She grabbed Jane by the wrist and urged her to follow. Fortunately not even Science! could keep Jane trapped in Reed Richard's lab any longer. She found him as boring as everyone else did, and she was one of the few people on the planet capable of actually understanding him.

"Please tell me it's time for margaritas," Darcy said, blithely pulling Jane with her into the back of Tony's limo. Tony raised an eyebrow as if to ask what they thought they were doing. Darcy completely ignored it.

"Mar...gar...it...as," she said, dragging out each syllable. "After that we  _definitely_ deserve them."

Tony glanced at his watch. "It's  three o'clock in the afternoon."

That wasn't actually a "no." 

"And?" Darcy asked.

"And," Tony finally said with a smirk, "after two mind-numbing hours listening to the world's most self-involved asshat soliloquize over a very minor discovery, I couldn't agree more."

~*~

Margaritas were definitely the answer...but since when did they make her this sleepy? 

Okay, so maybe the problem here was that she was drinking margaritas with Tony Stark. Not Tony Stark her boss, the guy who employed her to translate "scientist ramble," but the billionaire playboy who insisted on paying for everything. Usually Darcy ran out of money long before she got tipsy enough to...notice the strange way her nail polish glittered in the sunshine streaming through the window she was sitting under. Was it hot in here? Was that why she could barely keep her eyes open?

She looked over and noticed that Jane was almost asleep as well. Fuck, surely they hadn't downed that many margaritas. Darcy tried to count back, but her mind was too fuzzy to be sure just how many drinks she'd had.

"Um...where'd Tony go?"

Jane lifted her head awkwardly  and  looked around as if she hadn't noticed the man had gone missing.

"Um... Oh...um..." She glanced around the restaurant trying to get her bearings. "Oh, I think he left." She touched her fingers to her lips as if she'd just noticed they were numb. Darcy did the same because her lips definitely felt strange and then she couldn't help but giggle at the way Jane glared at the tip of a finger. As if it was defective or something, she tapped it against the table a few times before she realized Darcy was still waiting for an answer on Tony's whereabouts. "Oh, yeah, he had to go to some meeting thing." She shrugged drunkenly. "Turns out wasn't jus'n esskewsss."

The last word hissed out of Jane's mouth as she slid sideways and nearly fell out of the booth. But it wasn't until a man dressed in ratty jeans and a dirty T-shirt caught her that Darcy realized what had happened.

"Drugged," she managed to slur past lips that were no longer cooperating. 

The guy laughed, and lifted Jane into his arms. He nodded to his friend and somehow they both ended up being carried out the back exit of the restaurant. She had just enough conscious thought left to activate the emergency beacon in her bracelet before everything went black.

~*~

"Captain Rogers."

Steve jolted at the unexpected sound. Bucky did not react well to having a "voice" in the ceiling, so JARVIS usually contacted Steve via his cellphone, even when the Avengers needed to assemble. For him to use a direct voice now suggested a very big emergency.

"What is it JARVIS?" Bucky asked in a voice not nearly as steady as he was trying to project.

"Miss Lewis's tracking device was just activated."

"Where is she?" Bucky asked, already pulling weapons from hiding spaces Steve hadn't noticed before now.

"JARVIS?" Steve asked, worried when the AI didn't reply straight away.

"Apologies, Captain," the AI said again. "Miss Lewis tracking device is not far from the restaurant where she and Dr. Foster had a late lunch with Mr. Stark. It is moving very slowly, but I cannot determine if she is walking or in a car stuck in traffic. She is not answering her cellphone."

"Just give us the coordinates, computer," Bucky growled, his discomfort with the AI coming through in his tone.

"Of course," JARVIS said evenly, giving them both the street address of her current location and the longitude and latitude numbers. "I have alerted the other Avengers. Agents Barton and Romanov are heading for the quinjet. Mr. Stark is suiting up and I have sent an alert to Asgard." Steve nodded. Thor was going to be pissed to learn that his soulmate and her best friend had gone missing. 

"We'll run," Steve called over his shoulder, following Bucky out the door. 

"The others will meet you there, Captain," JARVIS said through the speakers in the hallway. Steve nodded and followed Bucky into the elevator.

~*~

Darcy woke suddenly.

"Fuck! What is that?" she exclaimed as consciousness rushed in all at once. 

"Relax," a deep male voice said. "It's just ice water."

Ice water that was currently dripping off her face and into her cleavage. That was  _so_ not her idea of fun. And who were these idiots? Cliché much?

"Dude, what the hell?"

"Just need your names," kidnapper number one said in a bored sounding tone.

"You kidnapped us without knowing who we are?" she asked incredulously. Thankfully Jane was lying on the bed behind her, blissfully sleeping through all of this.

"You had lunch with Tony Stark. That's all we need to know," kidnapper number two said with an insulting smirk. He crossed his arms and stood in front of Darcy as if she were some helpless female scared by all his manliness. If she was just a little bit more sober, and you know, able to move without fear of vomiting right now, she'd show him just how helpless she wasn't.

She rubbed her throbbing temples instead. "What the fuck did you put in our drinks?"

The guy snickered. "Just extra alcohol. Turns out you two really can't hold your liquor."

Yeah, as soon as she got her balance back she was so going to smack this guy...if he survived what Bucky would probably do to him.

"Oh shit," she said, panic starting to rise up her throat along with a good amount of acid reflux. Ugh. "Dude, you have to let us go... I mean like  _right the fuck now_ ." 

They were barely adults. Shit, they didn't even look old enough to drink and they sure as fuck weren't Hydra or AIM or any of the other organizations who might think to abduct Dr. Jane Foster. 

"Seriously, kid,"—and yeah, she'd been spending  _way_ too much time with her ninety-years-plus super soldiers—"you need to let us go and you need to get the fuck out of here before the shit hits the fan."

"No can do," said kidnapper number one (who Darcy was in the process of renaming as  _dumb-ass_ number one since he clearly had no idea what he'd gotten himself into.) "First we need the names of you and your friend. We make a call. Your lunch date the billionaire pays a perfectly reasonable ransom for your sweet asses, and then you'll both be home in time for dinner."

Darcy felt her mouth drop open. Was this guy serious? "You know Tony Stark is Iron Man, right?" Dumb-ass number two just shrugged. "You know he's more likely to blast a hole in the wall to rescue us than to pay a ransom... You know that right?"

"Oh, please," Dumb-ass Number Two (And yes, he'd graduated to capital letters now) said with disdain. "We're not stupid. We turned off your cellphones. They can't trace you." 

"Besides," Dumb-ass Number One added, "you're not that important. Tony Stark's a player. Trust me. He'll pay a ransom for the whores he had lunch with before he wastes his time tracking down your skanky asses."

Oh, he was  _so_ going to get smacked.

But since Dumb-asses One and Two were also liable to end up very dead, Darcy tried one more time to convince them that this was not a good plan. Not a good plan, like,  _at all_ .

"The woman sleeping on the bed behind me is Thor's soulmate. Tell me you've at least heard of him." 

Dumb-ass Two laughed outright this time. "Sure, she's Thor's soulmate." He rolled his eyes, clearing disbelieving her. "Because Tony Stark has lunch with other men's soulmates  _all_ the time."

"Actually," Dumb-ass Number One said in a conversational tone. "That sounds exactly like something Tony Stark would do. Gotta give the man kudos for having brass balls."

Darcy stared at the guy who was fanboying Tony Stark and waited for him to make the blindingly obvious connection between him kidnapping Thor's soulmate and his own possibly very short future. Apparently it didn't occur to him because he and his dumb-ass friend started arguing over appropriate ransom amounts.

"Hey," Darcy interrupted. "I'm worth at least double that." Okay, so maybe she'd forgotten for a moment how much danger these guys were in but that low amount was just insulting. "But...um...really, dude, you need to listen to me. There's a good chance that Iron Man, Thor, and my soulmates are already on their way here. You really,  _really_ need to let us go." 

"Nice try,"  Dumb-ass Number...  _guy_ said. (Thanks to the continuing effects of the alcohol they were really starting to blur in Darcy's mind. Both were wearing ratty jeans and dirty white T-shirts and with the continued dumb-assery they were honestly beginning to seem like one monumentally stupid guy who just happened to be standing in two places.) 

"Don't tell me. Let me guess," _other_ dumb-ass guy said. (Or was that same guy in a different spot?) "Your soulmate is..." He waved a hand in the air for theatrical effect and then loudly declared, "Captain America!"

It was clear that he wasn't going to believe her now, but she nodded anyway.

The two cackled hysterically. "How's about that?" one of the interchangeable dumb-asses said. "We've got Thor's  _and_ Captain America's soulmates."

"Actually, you _unarmed_ _dumb-ass_ _kids_ ," Darcy said, stressing the words for the man they obviously hadn't noticed silently enter the room behind them, "I have two soulmates. Captain America..."

"And the Winter Soldier," Bucky finished for her as he grabbed one guy by the back of the neck with his flesh hand and pressed a gun to the base of the other man's skull.

"You okay, kitten?" Bucky asked, seeming far calmer than Darcy had been expecting. Thank heavens. 

"I'm good," she said with a wry grin. She might have swayed a little. "Seriously drunk thanks to these dumb-asses increasing the strength of our drinks, but otherwise I'm okay."

"Did they hurt you?"

"Don't think so," Darcy said. As far as she could tell they'd carried her and Jane from the bar and then driven them to this apartment. There wouldn't have been time for them to do anything else since it would have taken fifteen minutes at the most for JARVIS to track her signal and assemble the team. "They wanted money from Tony. I tried to warn them they were in danger, but they wouldn't listen."

"We're...lis–listening n–n–now," Dumb-ass-with-a-gun-to-his-head stuttered out.

"Sorry. So, so sorry," Dumb-ass Other said, his contrition morphing back into absolute terror when the sunlight suddenly faded and lightning splintered the heavens a moment later. Jane smiled even though she was still unconscious. 

"Where's Steve?" Darcy asked, trying to stay calm. Thor was the hit-first-ask-questions-later type when it came to protecting his soulmate. Hopefully he would notice the calm, mundane conversation and hesitate long enough for someone to explain. "Don't tell me he got caught up with that PR thing today."

"No, doll," Steve said as he stepped into the room also. He nodded to Bucky, no doubt silently indicating that the rest of the apartment was clear. "The PR thing was a nightmare as usual." He hugged her as Bucky pushed her kidnappers to their knees and moved to stand in front of them. 

"Stay still, and keep your mouths shut," Bucky said in a gruff tone. He wasn't even wearing his full Winter Soldier uniform, yet he was still intimidating as fuck. And she knew that his mercy right now might be the only thing stopping her kidnappers from becoming crispy bits when Thor entered the room.

"I see your day was more interesting than mine, Darce," Steve suggested with a wide smile that didn't quite hide the worry he'd been feeling. "You okay?"

"Yeah, but I think it might be the last time I suggest a late lunch to Tony."

"Hey," Tony said as he stepped into the apartment in the Iron Man armor. He lifted the faceplate and gave her a wide grin. "Staying was your idea, science minion. I was all for dropping you two home on my way to my R&D meeting."

"That might be true," Darcy confessed. She had a very vague memory of waving Tony away when he'd offered them a lift home. "I don't think they started messing with the drinks until after Tony left."

She glanced over and saw the two guys nodding, apparently ready to confess everything. Good timing too since Clint and Natasha had just entered the room with a couple of SHIELD's finest right behind them. Both men were being handcuffed when Darcy's vision started to fade at the edges and the world tilted wildly.

~*~

Darcy was still in his embrace so it wasn't until her knees folded that Steve realized something was wrong. He lifted her unconscious form into his arms before she could slide to the floor. Bucky was beside him an instant later.

"What did you give them?" Bucky growled, low and angry as he stalked back to where the two men were being arrested. 

"Just alcohol," one of the young men said, scared enough now to have lost control of his bladder. "Th–The last one might have been a bit too strong."

Bucky swallowed the urge to kick the guy in his stupid head and tried to think rationally. If the last drink they'd been served had only been about fifteen minutes ago, then it did explain why Darcy would have been lucid then and passing out now. Their priority right now was to treat possible alcohol poisoning. It could lead to respiratory problems, hypothermia, dehydration, seizures, and permanent liver damage. Not to mention actual death.

"Fuck," Bucky growled, turning to lift Jane off the bed. "They need a hospital."

"Quinjet's on the roof," Clint said, hurrying out of the room, no doubt to do the pre-flight check while Steve and Bucky carried Darcy and Jane more carefully up the stairs.

Thor met them on the roof, but followed Steve's shouted instructions and climbed into the quinjet without delaying them. And thankfully Tony already had a medical team waiting for them when they landed on the roof of Stark Tower.

But that was just the beginning of one of the longest nights of Bucky's life.

~*~

Steve held Bucky close, unwilling to let him pace the hallways any longer. The doctors had worked quickly, immediately pumping  Jane’s and Darcy’s stomachs. Thankfully  both women had remained unconscious, so neither of them should remember the indignity of such an invasive procedure. 

And then the doctors had put them on intravenous fluids, sent blood samples to the lab, prepared medical reports for SHIELD, and were  still monitoring them  fifteen hours later as they slept off the effects of the alcohol. 

Thanks to that quick medical intervention, Darcy and Jane would probably have no more damage than they'd get from a heavy night of drinking. Not good for their livers, but definitely not as bad it could have been. If Darcy hadn't managed to activate her tracker, and it had taken them hours to realize they were missing and maybe hours more to find them, they might very well have ended up dying from alcohol poisoning.

"The doctors said she's going to be okay," Steve whispered, squeezing a little tighter when Bucky tried to wriggle out of his embrace. "Breathe, Buck. She's going to be okay."

"She almost wasn't," he said in a voice that sounded tight and broken. "We almost lost her."

"But we didn't." 

"We can't lose her, Stevie. She's too important."

"I know," Steve agreed. 

Before the war, he and Bucky had been happy together, but once Darcy had entered their lives and they'd found each other again, life had been incredible. She was the icing on the cake, the cream and sugar in their coffee. She was the person who made a good thing great. 

And some days she was the glue that held them together.

She'd helped Steve adapt to the twenty-first century, her patience endless even when his hadn't always been. And she'd supported, cajoled, and sometimes outright nagged Bucky until he'd reclaimed his life, his independence, his ability to be more than a silent shadow in their home. She'd pulled them both out of despair more than once and she'd given them so many reasons to keep getting up each morning.

But most of all she'd loved them—the real men, not for who they were or for what they could do. She wasn't impressed or fooled by their reputations, and she didn't give a damn what the tabloids said. She saw the real men who were her soulmates, not the public illusions.

Steve was so deep in thought he didn't even realize Darcy was waking up until she groaned and grumpily stuck her head under the pillow. He moved to dim the light as Bucky stepped toward the bed.

"How much did I drink?" she asked miserably.

"More than you intended, doll," Steve said, nudging Bucky until he took the hint and climbed onto the bed. Darcy immediately curled into his embrace and Steve carefully held the IV tubes out of the way until she was settled.

"Do you remember what happened, Darce?" Bucky asked in a quiet whisper.

"Not sure I want to," she mumbled in response. Steve was about to sit back down and let her sleep when Darcy jolted and tried to sit up. Bucky easily controlled her reaction but she still groaned out loud from the sudden movement. "Do I remember getting kidnapped?"

"Yeah, you activated your tracker as soon as you realized you were in trouble," Bucky said. 

"Yay, me," she said tiredly. "Any survivors?"

"Everyone survived thanks to you, kitten," Bucky said, smiling slightly at Steve. "But I don't think I'm ever letting you out of my sight again."

Darcy huffed out a laugh, but she was obviously too tired to argue. "Okay," she mumbled. Bucky looked a little bit stunned until she added, "For now." She snuggled closer to Bucky and then waved a hand in Steve's direction until he curled his fingers around her own. "Love you both."

"We love you too, Darce," Steve replied for both of them when he saw that Bucky was swallowing hard and trying to hold back tears. "Get some sleep, doll. We'll both be here when you wake up."

She smiled and nodded without opening her eyes and a moment later she was fast asleep once more. Steve pressed a kiss to her forehead and then leaned over to kiss Bucky too.

"We're all going to be okay, Buck."

Bucky nodded. "Yeah," he agreed, smiling through the tears that still shone in his eyes, "we will be." 

~*~

Bucky curled around Darcy, holding her close. Despite being the one needing to be rescued, Darcy had saved him again tonight. Bucky had been so fucking scared for her that he hadn't even considered who might have taken her. Hydra, AIM, or any of their other enemies, it simply hadn't mattered. He'd been fully prepared to kill anyone who'd stood between him and his soulmate.

But with only a couple of words she'd diffused the situation and deflated his anger and overwhelming fear. Thanks to her quick thinking and determination in a situation where she probably shouldn't have had either, Bucky didn't carry the regret of killing two dumb-ass kids who'd made a very bad decision.

Darcy had saved him again, this time perhaps without even realizing it. 

"How did we get so lucky, Stevie?"

"I have no idea, Buck," Steve said, gently sweeping Darcy's curls away from her face, "but I'm very glad we did."

"Me too," Bucky mumbled, finally relaxing enough to let sleep take him.

  


THE END


End file.
